Tuesday, October 08, 2013

For some much-needed clarity regarding the proximate cause (and some of the
possible consequences) of the government "shutdown", look no further than this
recent Thomas
Sowell column:

As for the House of Representatives' right to grant or withhold
money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution
of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of
Representatives, which means that Congressmen there have a right to decide
whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government
activity.

And, a little later:

The hundreds of thousands of government workers who have been laid
off are not idle because the House of Representatives did not vote enough money
to pay their salaries or the other expenses of their agencies -- unless
they are in an agency that would administer ObamaCare.

The Senate
chose not to vote to authorize that money to be spent, because it did not
include money for ObamaCare. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that he
wants a "clean" bill from the House of Representatives, and some in the media
keep repeating the word "clean" like a mantra. But what is unclean about not
giving Harry Reid everything he wants?

We have a combination of things creating the false appearance of an immediate
crisis: Widespread ignorance about how the government is supposed to work and
lies by leftist politicians promulgated, unchallenged by a lapdog media. But
many opponents are also falling for the nonsense. Sowell states later that,
"[p]erhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able
to pay what it owes on the national debt". I no longer recall where I saw it,
but I am pretty sure that I saw a conservative commentator swallow that whopper
hook, line, and sinker.

I recommend reading the whole thing -- and drawing the attention of others to it as well.